As we have seen recently, there is a movement to repeal SYG laws. Here is an article supporting such a notion.

As we have seen recently, descriptions of cases can be quite incomplete-- indeed to the point of being dishonest-- (e.g. the case being bandied wherein a woman is said to be sentenced to 20 years for a warning shot) but in the interest of fairness and so that we see what the other side is saying/reading, I post this here:

"Peaden, the former Republican senator from Crestview who sponsored the bill, said the law was never intended for people who put themselves in harm's way before they started firing. But the criminal justice system has been blind to that intent.

"The new law only requires law enforcement and the justice system to ask three questions in self-defense cases: Did the defendant have the right to be there? Was he engaged in a lawful activity? Could he reasonably have been in fear of death or great bodily harm? Without convincing evidence to the contrary, "stand your ground'' protection prevails.

"If prosecutors press charges, any defendant claiming self-defense is now entitled to a hearing before a judge. At the immunity hearing, a judge must decide based on the "preponderance of the evidence" whether to grant immunity. That's a far lower burden than "beyond a reasonable doubt," the threshold prosecutors must meet at trial.

""It's a very low standard to prove preponderance," said Weaver, the West Palm Beach lawyer. "If 51 percent of the evidence supports your claim, you get off.""

Ummm , , , it has been over 30 years since I took Criminal Law in law school, but I'm thinking that the article's thinking here is completely spurious. SD is an affirmative defense. Is not "preponderance of the evidence" the correct standard for SD defenses? Why should it be any different when the SD claim includes SYG?

Am I missing something here, or do I have it right?

"Unequal treatment: The outcome of a " stand your ground" case can turn on many factors: the location of blood spatters, the credibility of witnesses, the relative size and age of the parties involved."

Well, DUH! Just like any other SD defense case!

As I read the exceedingly brief and incomplete description of "the facts" of these cases many of the descriptions of different results that the article finds incongruous seem to me readily open to other interpretations.

Much has been made lately of the self-defense legal doctrine of Stand-Your-Ground, mostly for political purposes unrelated to any actual legal application of the doctrine (for more on this, see here: Stand-Your-Ground: Gun Control Zombies Exploit Grieving Black Community).

Those denouncing Stand-Your-Ground characterize it as something “new,” a misguided initiative adopted in recent years by state legislatures that has now been clearly demonstrated to have profoundly negative unexpected consequences. “Why, under Stand-Your-Ground you can shoot and kill someone just because! And it’s totally legal!”

This has become the common refrain of the pro-thug crowd who now begrudgingly concedes that Zimmerman had to be acquitted based on the facts and the law of the case–but the problem, they say, is not the thug, but the law. (For a discussion on why the Zimmerman case was never a Stand-Your-Ground case, look here: The Marissa Alexander Case Wasn’t About “Stand-Your-Ground” Either.)

Justifiable Killings Spiked in Florida After SYG Adopted – Self-Defense is Good

But are the consequences of Stand-Your-Ground either negative or unexpected? FBI data shows that there was an increase in justifiable homicides in the aftermath of Stand-Your-Ground, from an annual average of 13.2 during the period 2001-2005, to an average of 42 during 2006-2012. But isn’t that a positive and expected consequence of Stand-Your-Ground?

After all, a homicide that has been ruled justifiable is, by definition, one in which the person who killed was justified in doing so. Under American law, that means (with very rare exception) that the person they killed was reasonably perceived to be representing an imminent danger of death or grave bodily harm. That aggressor was subsequently killed by the use of defensive force.

What alternative outcome would the opponents of Stand-Your-Ground desire? That the defending victim of the aggressor be the one that was killed? Or perhaps merely maimed? Raped, Beaten down?

Highly aggressive acts of violence carry an inherent threat of death occurring to one of the participants, but the two participants are not operating on the same moral plane. The innocent defender is right in his use of defensive force, the aggressor is not. The innocent defender did not choose the initiation of violence, the aggressor did. If death must strike one of them, it is infinitely better that it strike down the thug than the law-abiding citizen.

To put it another way, it’s hard to get too worked up about an increase in the number of justifiable homicides occurring if the right people–the aggressors who initiated the deadly fight on an innocent–are doing the dying. When that’s the case, Stand-Your-Ground is working just fine, and the justified homicides will stop when criminal aggressors stop committing acts of aggravated violence on lawfully armed citizens. It’s the criminals’ call. (To hear this notion propounded by yours truly to a rather shocked NPR radio show, click here: Attorney Andrew Branca Participates on NPR Zimmerman Panel.)

The Venerable “New” Doctrine of Stand-Your-Ground

What about this concept that the Stand-Your-Ground doctrine is somehow “new.” It’s certainly true that a number of states in the last couple of decades have adopted explicit Stand-Your-Ground statutes. Florida’s was adopted in 2005, and my neighboring state of New Hampshire just adopted their version in 2011, overriding the veto of the Democratic governor, and many other states have adopted similar legislation in the intervening years.

In fact, however, Stand-Your-Ground is far older than today’s mainstream media and racial activists–but I repeat myself–would have you believe. A quick review of my own notes shows the earliest reference to the Stand-Your-Ground doctrine dates back to when the United States numbered a mere 38 states, the Indiana case of Runyon v. State, 57 Ind. 80 (1877). In that case the court noted:

The tendency of the American mind seems to be very strongly against the enforcement of any rule which requires a person to flee when assailed, to avoid chastisement or even to save a human life . . . [Therefore,] [t]he weight of modern authority . . establishes the doctrine that when a person, being without fault and in a place where he has a right to be, is violently assaulted, he may, without retreating, repel force by force, and if, in reasonable exercise of his right of self-defence, his assailant is killed, he is justifiable.

(As quoted in: Of the Enemy Within, The Castle Doctrine, and Self-Defense.)

Other venerable cases supporting are found strewn widely around the closing of the 19th century: People v. Lewis (a California case from 1897), Boykin v. People (a Colorado case from 1896), Ragland v. State (a Georgia case from 1900), State v. Hatch (a Kansas case from 1896), and State v. Partlow (a Missouri case from 1887).

So, it’s pretty clear that Stand-Your-Ground has been around a very long time. Indeed, it has always been the majority doctrine in the United States, with only a minority of states adopting a generalized duty to retreat before using deadly force in self-defense. Even today, only 17 states apply such a duty.

Why the Pendulum from SYG to Duty to Retreat, and Back to SYG ?

But what about the states that have more recently gone Stand-Your-Ground, and were previously “duty to retreat” states by either statute or court decision? Why the change? After all, the moral imperatives that argue for Stand-Your-Ground have existed in America for at least 136 years, yet these states had moved away from the Stand-Your-Ground doctrine despite these imperatives. What drove the change from Stand-Your-Ground to “duty to retreat”? And what drove the change back again?

The shift away from Stand-Your-Ground and towards the generalized duty to retreat was predicated on the notion that all life is precious, and before a defender can take the life of an attacker he must first exhaust every other option. And sometimes they really mean every other option. You hear that sentiment expressed by the anti-Stand-Your-Ground folks today. Listen to the pro-thug faction talking about the Zimmerman case and you’ll soon hear someone lament that poor George should have exhausted his brains on the sidewalk before being justified to use deadly force to stop Martin’s vicious attack. After all, it was just an “ass-whuppin.” Indeed, much of the State’s prosecution of Zimmerman was based on the (legally ludicrous notion) that Zimmerman’s injuries were too minor to justify his use of deadly force in self defense. (To see why this notion is ludicrous, click here: Zimmerman Update — How Much Injury Is Required Before Self-Defense is Justified?)

So, what happened? Why the shift back?

“An Unarmed Society is an Impolite Society”

First, as is typical of liberal policies, even (especially?) when well intended, they had massive and genuinely negative unexpected consequences. A criminal who knows he can seize physical control of his immediate surroundings with no fear of death or grave bodily harm being visited upon him is emboldened to do exactly that. You get more violent aggression from the criminal element of society, not less, when you force law-abiding citizens to cede control to violent criminals. It’s Heinleins’, “An armed society is a polite society,” turned topsy-turvy.

Duty to Retreat Greatly Facilitates the Destruction of Otherwise Solid Claims of Self-Defense

Second, the imposition of a generalized duty to retreat made defeating almost any claim of self-defense child’s play for hyper-aggressive prosecutors. In a fight for your life your attention is focused sharply on staying alive–at least, if you survived we can assume that was the case. After allocating the cognitive bandwidth to staying alive, there’s often not a whole lot left to allocate to identifying and carefully assessing the prospects for safely retreating down that particular path, or through that particular door, or behind that particular obstacle.

But in the cool, safe environs of a court room, the Prosecutor will point to ALL of these avenues of escape and demand the jury ask why not one of them were pursued–why they were not even attempted? And if he can convince them that a reasonably safe avenue of retreat existed and you failed to take advantage of it, failed to meet your generalized duty to retreat, before using deadly force, your use of that force is not justifiable under the law. Your entire claim of self-defense collapses out from under you, and instead your conduct has become an unlawful killing.

(Note: There are some duty-to-retreat states that do not entirely strip you of your right to claim self-defense if you failed to take advantage of a reasonably safe avenue of retreat. Under the doctrine of “imperfect self-defense” they allow you to mitigate what would have been a murder conviction to manslaughter. Recall that in the Zimmerman trial George was actually facing more jail time if convicted of the “lesser included charge” of manslaughter than if he was convicted of murder.)

States Became Fed-Up With Negative Consequences of Duty to Retreat, Switched Back to SYG

As prosecutors increasingly began to leverage this avenue of attacking self-defense claims, and society observed ever more miscarriages of justice with law-abiding defenders receiving lengthy, sometimes life-long, prison sentences because of the generalized duty to retreat, pressure gradually grew to return to the always more popular doctrine of Stand-Your-Ground.

NOTICE: “Law of Self Defense” Seminars are now being scheduled for the fall.

Andrew F. Branca is an MA lawyer and author of the seminal book “The Law of Self Defense, 2nd Edition” now available at www.lawofselfdefense.com and also at Amazon.com as either a hardcopy or in Kindle version, and at Barnes & Noble as hardcopy or (soon!) in Nook version.

You can follow Andrew on Twitter on @LawSelfDefense and using #LOSD2, on Facebook, and at his blog, The Law of Self Defense.

This post isn’t really about the Zimmerman case, though I’ll touch on how use of force laws actually work relating to that case, but it is a result of the ignoramuses who know jack about how self-defense laws work who are currently talking about it and pissing me off. Included in that list is the President of the United States.

On Friday, Barack Obama said the following during a press conference. Our illustrious leader is in italics. My response is in bold.

You know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot I said that this could have been my son.

Yes. We appreciate the leader of the free world chiming in on local crime issues, especially before any facts are known.

Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.

Where you in the habit of committing battery against people 35 years ago?

And when you think about why, in the African American community at least, there’s a lot of pain around what happened here, I think it’s important to recognize that the African American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn’t go away.

And your preconceived notions, feelings, and emotions should be totally irrelevant in the eyes of the law. Justice should be blind, and a case should be decided based upon the evidence and whether the prosecution can convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime was committed or not.

There are very few African American men in this country who haven’t had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me.

Me too. And despite my dad being of darker skin tone than Al Sharpton, according to these Home Depot paint chips I’m only Warm Beige. Also totally irrelevant. I’ve got a family member who takes after my mom’s super lily white side of the family, way the hell whiter than my swarthy self, who always got tailed through stores because he managed to look suspicious, and oddly enough got arrested for shop lifting on his 18th birthday.

There are very few African American men who haven’t had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happens to me — at least before I was a senator.

There are very few African Americans who haven’t had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off. That happens often.

And this happens to black men, white men, Asians, Latinos, you name it, and I think that’s awesome. That means that woman is paying attention to her surroundings and knows that simple physics gives a huge advantage to the male in case he decides to do something. Aren’t you from the same side that is constantly complaining that America has a “rape culture”?

I happen to look like a scary 6’5” Tony Soprano. I’m actually physically intimidating, and that is at 37 years old and years of desk job. When I was in my 20s I could bench press 365 pounds and was 270 pounds, 16% body fat, of Big Ugly. I usually had a shaved head and a goatee and I looked like my favorite hobby was punching things, which it was. I was a hundred times more physically intimidating that President Lady Parts on his best day. So I’ve been profiled tons, and I’ve had lots of women obviously assess me like I was a threat.

And I don’t think it is a bad thing at all.

#

First off, way to bring America together there, champ, sending the DoJ after a guy who got acquitted with your civil rights violations witch hunt. People get shot every single day, and some of them in cases way more complicated and questionable than this one, but none of those happened in the lead up to a national election where you needed to try and scare the electorate that America is still Mississippi circa 1957.

Second off, that is an incredibly vapid and naïve sentiment, not to mention hypocritical coming from a dude whose family will have armed security profiling potential threats for the rest of their lives.

Over the last couple of days I’ve grown tired listening to people who know jack about use of force laws bloviating on and on about how it is awful to profile people, and how the mere act of being suspicious of another person makes you evil. So today I’m going to talk about profiling, and how come it isn’t a bad thing at all. Notice that I didn’t say racial profiling, because race has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Back when I was teaching concealed carry classes I used to spend a bunch of time going over use of force issues. This can be basically broken into two main categories: Legal, as in when you are legally justified in shooting somebody (a Reasonable Man would believe there is Ability, Opportunity, and an Immediate Threat of Serious Bodily Harm to themselves or a 3rd person from an aggressor), and Tactical, as in the decisions you make in order to maximize your chances of not getting hurt or killed. The two aren’t always the same, as you can be legally justified in getting involved, but it is tactically stupid, or vice versa.

Profiling falls under the tactical end of things.

The single best weapon you’ve got to defend yourself isn’t your gun, but rather your brain. You need to be smart, and try not to put yourself into situations where you would need to use your gun. The best way to do this is by paying attention, and when you notice something which could be construed as a potential threat, you do what you need to do in order to avoid it.

And at this point, somebody is going to read that and shriek about how according to my advice Zimmerman shouldn’t have followed Trayvon… Uh huh, legally that doesn’t matter, because as I noted above law and tactics aren’t the same, and you can be 100% legally justified even if you didn’t make the best decisions in the world leading up to the event. I had somebody get all belligerent on Facebook and demand “would you have done what Zimmerman did?!” And my answer was No, but the jury is going to ask “did you act as a reasonable man?” not “did you act like a guy who has gone through hundreds of hours of training?” And you’d better pray to God they never change it from Reasonable Man to “did you act as Larry Correia would have acted?” because then you’re all screwed.

So getting back on topic, the best way to avoid a violent encounter is to watch out for potential threats so you can hopefully avoid them, or be ready to react appropriately should things go south. That means paying attention to your surroundings. (This also keeps you from getting hit by cars, falling in holes, or being devoured by wild animals, so yay! Happy bonus!) That means paying attention to people who could–but more than likely won’t–want to hurt you.

I used to tell my students to pay attention to their instincts. If you get a bad vibe off of somebody, for whatever reason, pay attention to it. That doesn’t make you rude, or a jerk, that is just you paying attention to survival instincts that have been built into the human species over millennia for a reason. If the person that made you nervous happens to be a different color than you, who cares? That doesn’t make you racist, and it doesn’t make you a bad person. It just means that they’ve made your survival instincts tingle. So pay attention.

I had somebody on Twitter today tell me that according to that reasoning, Martin was justified in attacking Zimmerman, because Zimmerman made him nervous… That’s just freaking stupid. I said pay more attention, I didn’t say go over and commit a forcible felony against them. Duh.

So if you see somebody coming up to your car, where is the harm in locking the door? I know this may offend the president’s tender feelings, but he’ll get over it. You’re out nothing and 99.99% of the time it doesn’t matter, but that .01% of the time you just told a potential predator that he’s better off picking a different victim. (this part is highly ironic, as the people I’ve been debating with keep saying Zimmerman should have stayed in his car, but apparently he shouldn’t have locked the door!)

There’s a saying from firearms instructor Clint Smith, “If you look like food, you’re going to get eaten.” I used to explain to my classes that criminals were as good at their chosen career as the students were at theirs. Criminals are experts at picking out victims, and they prefer the suckers who aren’t paying attention. If you look like work, they’re probably going to pick somebody else to victimize. If you’re paying attention you’ve gone from “food” to “work” and if they wanted to work for a living they’d get a real job.

I think one reason permit holders don’t get into as many violent encounters as the regular population isn’t because the gun is some magic talisman that wards off evil, but rather because once you’ve made the decision to carry a firearm, you tend to pay more attention to the world around you.

So pay attention! Watch people. Watch for those visual, non-verbal clues that set off your survival instincts. If somebody makes you nervous, be prepared for something to happen, or try to move yourself out of the way. I call this common sense. Barack Obama calls it profiling, except for when DHS does it to veterans, because that’s just groovy.

But good people have been trained that judging others is bad! Violent criminals, especially those that specialize in preying on women, are aware of this, and they absolutely love it. The creepers and the stalkers and the would-be rapists take advantage of regular folk’s inclination to be polite. I’ve taught hundreds of female students, and many of them could personally cite some jackass taking advantage of their attempts to be polite, or if the woman stood up for herself (or clutched nervously at her purse and held her breath) they’d get some variation of “how come you gotta be such a bitch?”

Thieves and jerks who want to physically assault you love this too. If somebody is getting into your personal space, the natural human inclination is to move away, but too many people have been trained by liberals to be good little serfs, and they try to avoid giving offense, so they let the bad guy close on them, and once they are too close, it is too late. I’ve seen normal people let scary, aggressive, obviously messed up people close way into their personal space, and they sit there and take it, because they’ve been programmed that “profiling is bad” or he could actually be bug nuts crazy and you let the dude with the rusty box cutter get into bad breath distance. At least after he opens your jugular, at your funeral they’ll be able to say you never judged anyone.

I don’t give a crap if race comes into this or not. I’m the same color as Cheech Marin. During the summer I’m best described as “swarthy” but my olive skin tone and ability to tan well isn’t why I think it is awesome when I see some woman in a parking lot take note of my approach. It is because for all she knows I’m a potential threat, capable of easily physically overwhelming her, and she can stand there like a sucker and bank on fortune and karma that I’m not, or she could notice me and pay attention. Maybe even not stick her head inside the car and obliviously load groceries until I walk past. In fact, I’m so big that I’m used to going around people in places like that, simply to avoid making them nervous.

I’m so big and ugly that if I got into an elevator with Barack Obama he’d hold his breath and clutch his purse. Except I’d never be allowed into an elevator with Barack Obama because his highly trained Secret Service detail would profile me first.

I’m going to teach this to my daughters. Pay freaking attention. I’d much rather they hurt Barack Obama’s delicate lilac scented feelings, than they end up as victims. But then again, I’m also expecting my children to all carry firearms, because a firearm is the ultimate equalizer.

Now, for the people who are getting offended because people are profiling you… Yep. No big deal. Grow up. Some of us are scary looking. Don’t let it hurt your feelings. You just need to come to terms with the fact that humans routinely victimize other humans, and some of us look more like predators than others. Does it sting when somebody reacts like that, even though you’re the nicest, most genuinely friendly person around? Sure does. Now imagine it was your wife, or your daughter, or your mom, or your grandma, and they were dealing with some scary son of a bitch that looks like you… Yeah, that changes your perspective, doesn’t it?

A fact of life is that people are going to look at you and make a snap judgment. If I see a group of young men dressed all Thug Life, you’re damn right I’m going to pay more attention. If you dress and act in a manner that equates with a culture well known for its violent tendencies, well yeah, people are going to be suspicious of you. Duh. If that offends you, pull up your pants. You look like an idiot with your underwear hanging out anyway. I also don’t trust white guys with swastikas tattooed on their faces. I obviously must be racist toward white people.

When I was 17 I got my jaw dislocated and a concussion from a beating I took from four members of an “inner city youth organization”. They came up and sucker punched me because I wasn’t paying attention and dog piled me (though I did actually win in the end, like I said, big dude). Would I notice them now? More than likely, because I’m older, wiser, and I’ve had the experience of getting my ass kicked enough to reinforce the need to pay attention in public places to groups of young men acting like they’re looking to give somebody the “whoop ass”. Knowing what I know now I might have picked up on the indicators, the way they got charged up, the target selection process, whatever, and I might have been able to move myself out of the way, or at least been more prepared for the confrontation. And in this case, all four of them were within two shades of Home Depot paint chips worth of skin color off of me. Race was irrelevant. I’d notice the same thing if they were Nigerian or Norwegian. Because once they are stomping on your head, race is fairly irrelevant.

#

Stand Your Ground Laws

In related idiocy, the other thing that I’m hearing a lot of bleating about is how evil Stand Your Ground laws are. I keep seeing people saying that Stand Your Ground should be repealed, and then they cite a bunch of crap that actually doesn’t have anything to do with SYG type laws. Of course, Attorney General Eric Holder, who is best known for illegally smuggling thousands of guns to Mexican drug cartels, is totally trust worthy on this topic.

I saw a blog post from another sci-fi author talking about how SYG laws basically make it legal for white people to kill black people if the black people make them nervous… Wow… That’s like saying we dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima because Americans weren’t fond of origami or haiku. No, dumbass, that’s not how the law works. Just because MSNBC told you SYG laws are racist doesn’t make it true.

The thing is, SYG laws protect everybody, and everybody includes minorities. It protects anybody who acts in self-defense from the state and from over-zealous prosecutors. I keep seeing all these liberals talking about the racist injustice inherent in the system and how blacks are more likely to be sent to prison, and in the next sentence they are saying that we need to give the state MORE prosecutorial power and get rid of things like Reasonable Doubt and SYG laws.

There are two differing sets of law that govern how state’s self-defense laws work, Stand Your Ground and Duty to Retreat. Basically all Stand Your Ground means is that you don’t have a Duty to Retreat, and most states have been this way since George Washington chased out the British, so this isn’t anything new.

Duty to Retreat means that you MUST flee from your attacker if possible. If you don’t retreat, and you shoot, then you can be prosecuted for that. Some states even require you to try and retreat from inside your own home. Stand Your Ground means you have no Duty to Retreat (but it doesn’t mean you can just shoot whoever you want whenever you want like people are trying to spin it).

But why wouldn’t you want to avoid shooting somebody? I always taught my students to avoid shooting if possible. That sounds great! Except here’s the problem. You get into a violent encounter. You’ve got a couple of seconds, tops, of gut wrenching terror in which to decide a course of action, commit, and see it through. So somebody attacks you, you are in fear for your life, and you shoot them. Except now when you go to court the prosecution can go after you because in those two seconds, when you didn’t see a way out, the prosecutor thought of one! And nowthey are going to pontificate on what you should have did differently, and how you should have tried harder to get away… Only they are going to do it in an air conditioned court room for ten thousand times longer than you had to decide, and when they get hungry they are going to order pizza.

With Stand Your Ground, that’s not going to come up, because you’re not required to try and run away. That’s it. That’s really all it comes down to. You’re not required to try and flee.

It doesn’t mean you can just shoot brown people who make you nervous. That’s propaganda bullshit. Even in the most lenient use of force law states (one of which I live in and taught this stuff for a decade) that’s not how it works at all. Let me condense down a couple of hours of legal lecture into a few points to see if any given shoot is justified or not. Most states operate on the following criteria:

Would a Reasonable Person (like a jury) make the following assumptions in your circumstances?

Were you in fear of receiving Serious Bodily Harm from an attacker? (some states use the term Grievous Bodily Harm instead, but either way it means were you in fear for your life, or of getting a bad life threatening or potentially life altering injury? Also, in some states it is you, or a third person, meaning that you can get involved not just to save your life, but someone else’s life as well)

If so, would a Reasonable Person come to the conclusion that your assailant(s) met the following three criteria: 1.Did they have the Ability to cause you Serious Bodily Harm? (basically meaning can they actually hurt you?) 2.Did they have the Opportunity to cause you Serious Bodily Harm? (basically meaning can they reach you with their ability?) 3.Were they acting in a manner that suggested they were an Immediate Threat? (basically meaning are they actually acting like they’re going to do all this stuff to you now? Some states refer to this as Jeopardy)

Check. Check. Check… Bang. That’s fundamentally how the law works. Keep in mind in a class I would spend an hour going over examples of shoot and no shoot situations based on those things, but that’s basically all there is to it.

So let’s look at Trayvon Martin getting shot by George Zimmerman. Go through the criteria. The stuff leading up to it is basically irrelevant for this portion. Serious Bodily Harm? In most cases there aren’t even any physical injuries to show, and you’re still justified just by the reasonable belief of potential threat, but in this case there are actual injuries. Slamming your head into pavement meets the legal threshold. In fact, any blow to the head sufficient to render you unconscious is sufficient to kill you, and also if somebody renders you unconscious a reasonable man can say that you can assume they’re not going to stop there. So good to go.

Right there, within a couple of days of the shooting most of the self-defense instructors in the nation looked at this case and said, yep, he’s getting off. Not because of race, because for us you could flip the races and it was the 1/8th black Peruvian that got shot after committing battery against a black guy, and the answer remains the same, because that’s how the law is structured.

I say this and I’ve got people saying that I’m rejoicing in the death of a black kid… Sigh… Yeah, don’t tell all the black people I taught to shoot and certified to carry concealed weapons… No, you freaking idiots, my FEELINGS are irrelevant, because law isn’t supposed to operate on feelings. It is supposed to operate on evidence.

So up next comes the legal question of whether the individual did anything which escalated, contributed to, or caused the violent encounter. Now the Reasonable People of the jury are deciding if this was Mutual Combat (when two people mutually decide to fight) that turned deadly. This is actually what most of the Zimmerman trial was about, and this is the point of the phone calls, and the timelines, and the witnesses, and everything else. It was to see if Zimmerman was partially legally at fault for the events, and if so, how much.

In this case, the jury looked at the events in question leading up to the shooting, and they couldn’t say Zimmerman was responsible beyond a Reasonable Doubt. (see, there’s that word Reasonable again).

Remember earlier when I mentioned law and tactics? They’re not the same. Could Zimmerman have done things differently? Certainly. But making bad tactical decisions isn’t necessarily illegal. The jury figured that regardless of what Zimmerman did, ultimately it was Martin that circled back around and committed the Forcible Felony. At that point it went up to the checklist above. Part of being a Reasonable Man is not being able to predict the future with 100% accuracy. Everybody makes assumptions, and sometimes they are incorrect, that doesn’t make it illegal. Jumping on somebody and braining them on the sidewalk is illegal.

I’ve had people demand how come Stand Your Ground didn’t protect Trayvon! (seriously, I’ve seen this like 50 times on Twitter. It is like everybody works off the same narrative talking points). SYG doesn’t apply in this case because apply the checklist of Ability, Opportunity, and Immediacy to Zimmerman. Somebody following you through a neighborhood doesn’t mean that you can go and beat the hell out of them. And if you attack somebody before they reasonably present a threat of Serious Bodily Harm, then it isn’t lawful self-defense, so SYG doesn’t apply.

Prosecution’s witness, Rachel Janteel, (Trayvon’s girlfriend) was on Piers Morgan and said that the reason Trayvon Martin attacked George Zimmerman was because he thought Zimmerman was a “gay rapist”. And also that Martin didn’t mean to kill Zimmerman, that was just a misunderstanding on Zimmerman’s part, and really Travyon just wanted to give him the “whoop ass” (her words, not mine) which was a cultural thing and how they took care of people like that… Despite MSNBC’s narrative to the contrary SYG doesn’t allow you to give the “whoop ass” to somebody just because you think they’re gay.

(On that note, gay rights community… Seriously? I taught and certified a lot of gays and lesbians to carry guns, and the reason they usually gave me was so they could protect themselves from somebody giving them the “whoop ass” because of how they looked, and now I’m hearing crickets. Where’s the condemnation against this reasoning? Where’s the outrage?)

I’ve had people yell at me that there was only one side alive to tell their story… (again, another common talking point) Oh my gosh… That’s so incredibly dumb. That’s not how it works at all. If that was the case then there would never be any murder trials because obviously one side couldn’t testify! There’s ALWAYS more than one side. There’s evidence, there’s witnesses, there’s experts who reconstruct the details, and the prosecution had all of that to present, and the jury still had Reasonable Doubt.

Then I’ve got people crying about how “unjust” Reasonable Doubt is… You fools. You stupid, stupid fools. Put your emotion in check. What Reasonable Doubt really is the final check and balance against the state’s ability to throw your ass in prison forever with a flimsy case. You’re going to bitch and whine about the injustice, and how it is racist that more blacks are prosecuted and incarcerated, and your answer is to make it EASIER for the state to throw people in prison? Holy moly. You have no idea what you are wishing for.

That’s it. That’s how the self-defense laws work. Wrap your heads around the actual laws and calm the hell down. Instead you’re begging stalwart defenders of civil rights like President Drone Strike and the AG who is cool with killing Mexicans to get rid of laws that protect YOU from the STATE. That’s way scarier than any one neighborhood watch guy with a gun.

"You see, it's not the blood you spill that gets you what you want, it's the blood you share. Your family, your friendships, your community, these are the most valuable things a man can have." Before Dishonor - Hatebreed

Welcome to the Obama administration’s cringe-inducing non sequitur of the week. On Tuesday, Attorney General Eric Holder continued stoking the fires of racial resentment over a Florida jury’s acquittal of George Zimmerman. In an address to NAACP leaders, who are demanding federal intervention, Holder attacked Stand Your Ground self-defense laws.

All together now: Squirrel!

“Separate and apart from the (Trayvon Martin) case that has drawn the nation’s attention, it’s time to question laws that senselessly expand the concept of self-defense and sow dangerous conflict in our neighborhoods,” Holder opined. He then baselessly claimed that such laws are creating “more violence than they prevent” and used his platform to promote citizens’ “duty to retreat.”

So, what exactly do Stand Your Ground laws have to do with Zimmerman and Martin? Absolutely nothing, of course. Outside your own home, common principles of self-defense dictate that unless you have reasonable fear of deadly force or harm, you must flee if possible rather than use deadly force. But a “duty to retreat” rests on the ability to retreat. And “duty to retreat” was irrelevant in Zimmerman’s case because — pinned to the ground with Martin on top of him, bashing his head on the concrete — he was unable to retreat.

This didn’t stop the NAACP crowd from cheering their heads off when Holder tossed out his red meat. Holder’s racial-grievance-mongering agenda has also been bolstered by media propaganda outlets, who’ve been dutifully bashing Stand Your Ground regardless of the facts.

The New York Times, for example, falsely claimed in an editorial preceding Holder’s speech that the jury “reached its verdict after having been asked to consider Mr. Zimmerman’s actions in light of the now-notorious Stand Your Ground provision in Florida’s self-defense law.” Rolling Stone made a similarly inflammatory claim, calling Martin a “victim of Florida’s Stand Your Ground law.”

All nonsense. The jury received standard instructions. Zimmerman did not invoke the Stand Your Ground provision. Zimmerman later waived his right to a pretrial immunity hearing under the Stand Your Ground procedures.

And as National Review’s Sterling Beard points out, “The only time Stand Your Ground came up during the trial proper was when a prosecution witness stated that he’d taught a class Zimmerman had attended that covered Stand Your Ground.”

Even the prosecution rejects the cynical attempt to tie Martin’s death to Stand Your Ground. Prosecutor John Guy couldn’t have made it clearer during the trial: “This case is not about standing your ground.” During their post-trial press conference, as conservative talk show host Victoria Taft first noted, a Miami Herald reporter asked the prosecution team specifically whether Stand Your Ground “affected the facts in this case and whether this case could have been won, perhaps, pre the changes in the law.”

Prosecutor Bernie De La Rionda replied: “You know, self-defense has existed for a long time. And we’ve dealt with it in Jackson for a long time. We’ve tried a lot of self-defense cases; I’ve personally tried 10-15 self-defense cases. They’re tough cases, but we accept it so … the law really hasn’t changed all that much. Stand Your Ground was a big thing, but really the law hasn’t changed. We have a right to bear arms and a right to self defense.”

In short, Stand Your Ground did not kill Trayvon Martin. Stand Your Ground did not sway the jury. Stand Your Ground saboteurs don’t have a leg to stand on. Columnist Jacob Sullum observed drily: “You might think that, given all we now know about Zimmerman’s actual defense, critics of ‘stand your ground’ laws would have to find a different, more apposite case to illustrate their concerns. Instead they just barrel along, citing the same phony example again and again, without regard to the facts. It does not inspire confidence in their argument.”

Nope, it inspires exasperation and contempt. Once again, Eric Holder’s Department of Selective and Social Justice is grasping for straws. Holder now vows to “continue to fight for removal of Stand Your Ground laws” that had nothing to do with the Zimmerman trial. He promises to ban “racial profiling” in the aftermath of a local crime incident that — according to Holder’s own FBI employees — had nothing to do with race.

This is all a transparent pretext, of course, for undermining a plethora of state laws enacted by pro-Second Amendment legislatures. (Never mind that eight of 15 states that adopted Stand Your Ground legislation were helmed by Democratic governors at the time of passage.) Even more insidiously, left-wing groups have exploited the Martin case to launch broader attacks on the political speech and activities of limited-government groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council, which supported Stand Your Ground.

The Obama administration’s cynical campaign against Stand Your Ground laws is a racially charged weapon of mass distraction. The goal isn’t public safety or community harmony. The goal is for conservative political opponents to Surrender Your Ground. Silence, as always, is complicity. Political self-defense, as with physical self-defense, begins with self-assertion.

Every time I read something from the Pro-Trayvon crowd it seems their opinion on everything is based on feeling rather than facts that were presented.

« Last Edit: July 25, 2013, 06:06:27 PM by Dog Robertlk808 »

Logged

"You see, it's not the blood you spill that gets you what you want, it's the blood you share. Your family, your friendships, your community, these are the most valuable things a man can have." Before Dishonor - Hatebreed

The Breyer Miggs (?) personality tests are based upon Carl Jung's notion that people have one of four basic principal modalities: thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition. IIRC by far the largest % of the population has feeling as its principal modality. At least this juror was able to put that aside and act upon the facts.

Colonel Jeff Cooper provided a color code of mental awareness, which has been adopted by Front Sight in Pahrump, Nevada. None of the following constitutes legal advice, but it is easy to see how this color code goes well beyond debunking the myth that "stand your ground" laws turn streets into free-fire zones. Its diligent application also prevents much, if not most, violent street crime even without the display or possession of a weapon.

Condition White means a person is daydreaming, talking on a cell phone, or is otherwise unaware of what is going on around him or her. Criminals love to catch victims in Condition White because the usual result of a surprise attack is total paralysis. Many carjacking victims are shot not because they resist, but because they freeze so thoroughly that they cannot even obey the robber's order to surrender the vehicle.

It is noteworthy, by the way, that the Nazis were able to murder upward of 10 million people at a relatively low cost to their own lives (the Warsaw Ghetto uprising was one of the few exceptions) by keeping them collectively in Condition White. Jews and other victims were not told they were being taken to extermination camps; they were told they were being "relocated."

Meat-packing factories may similarly use an animal known as a Judas goat -- a trained member of the same species that is to be slaughtered. Its presence keeps the victims in Condition White until it is too late for them to realize what is happening to them.

Humans, and possibly domestic livestock, are the only animals that live even part of their lives in Condition White. All wild animals live their entire lives in Condition Yellow, and law enforcement experts suggest that law-abiding people should do so as well.

Condition Yellow is a prudent level of vigilance, and this vigilance stops many potentially deadly confrontations before they even begin. This is because there is not much difference between the decision processes that criminals and predatory animals use. If a carnivore wins a fight, he gets a meal. If a criminal wins a fight, he gets the victim's property, or the enjoyment of a sexual assault. In either case, however, the attacker cannot risk anything but the most trivial injuries. If the predatory animal is hurt badly in a fight, the meal it just killed will be its last, because it will be unable to catch another. No rational criminal wants to get hurt, either, and even a non-fatal gunshot wound will almost certainly lead to an arrest. No rational criminal will therefore attack somebody who is in Condition Yellow; he does not know for sure that even a smaller and physically weaker victim won't do him some damage.

Pearl Harbor was obviously not caught in Condition White on December 7, 1941. A military base is always at no less than Condition Yellow because there are always sentries and lookouts, and Pearl Harbor also had a rudimentary radar system. The Japanese attack succeeded because the base did not go to Condition Orange when the radar operators saw things of whose identity they were uncertain.

Condition Orange means the identification of a potential threat -- a situation that "makes you uncomfortable." There is probably a good reason for this; our instincts, like those of all other animals, evolved to prevent us from becoming meals. Condition Orange is what police instructor Massaad Ayoob calls "bare fear," as opposed to "reasonable fear." You are justified in taking countermeasures to avoid the situation in question. You areemphatically not justified in even drawing a gun, much less aiming it at somebody, in Condition Orange.

I personally encountered an excellent Condition Orange simulation at Luzerne County Community College's Public Safety Institute. I confronted, while holding a handgun simulator at the ready position (drawn but not aimed), a Caucasian version of Trayvon Martin who was acting suspiciously in the wrong neighborhood. He suddenly reached behind his back, drew a knife, and lunged at me. The computer determined that he reached me before I could aim and fire, which I did the instant he began his attack. (In practice, he had not done anything previously to even justify drawing a gun on him, which meant I had an advantage that a police officer or armed citizen would not have had in reality.) The lesson is, therefore, to put as much distance as you can between yourself and a suspicious individual even if you are armed. He can otherwise bring a knife to a gunfight, and win.

If Condition Orange is the rustling in the woods that tells you a wolf might nearby, Condition Red means you can see the wolf. This is the condition that the law calls reasonable fear, and under which you may be justified in drawing a firearm. It is at this point that you decide, "If he does so-and-so [which is a direct threat to your life or that of another person], I will have to use a weapon, or a potentially lethal martial arts technique."

Condition Black, as used by Front Sight, means the assailant has just done so-and-so.

To recap:

•Condition Yellow keeps you, and the would-be criminal, out of trouble by deterring all but the most vicious or deranged assailants. In the latter case, Condition Yellow gives you time to react. •Condition Orange is "bare fear," or, to use the words of Barack Obama and other critics of stand your ground laws, "you feel threatened." •Condition Red means that the law's ideal "reasonable person" knows that his or her life is in danger. Only at this point does "stand your ground" become operational.

The Cooper Color Code applies comprehensively only to situations in which you are outside your house: a place in which it is reasonable, and necessary for eight or so hours per day, to be in Condition White. We are helpless when we sleep, and horror/slasher movie producers include victim-in-the-shower scenes because we are equally helpless while we bathe. Most real people do not carry guns into the bathtub or shower, unless they are Tuco Ramirez or Big Jake. Even carrying a gun in your home, which few people really want to do, won't help if you are asleep.

This underscores the need for ample reaction time in the event of a violent home invasion, and the truth is that burglars can kick in a door with even a deadbolt lock if the strike plate is not anchored into the wall stud. You can buy, and for less than ten dollars, strike plates (e.g. Gatehouse) with long screws that do go all the way into the stud. Other off-the-shelf security solutions, such as Nightlock, are available.

William A. Levinson, P.E. is the author of several books on business management including content on organizational psychology, as well as manufacturing productivity and quality. (Nothing in this opinion piece constitutes engineering advice, or professional security advice.)

MV is the co-author of the "SD Law of the 50 States" book that we sell here on the website. His comments on this case:

Marc,

This is a sad case. This is where the "curtilage" statutes come in handy. Utah calls the "curtilage" the perimeter of your real property! But that statute has not been tested but at least it's on the books just in case needed. Louisiana's statutes dance around the concept of presumptions for home defense, but it appears the statute requires entry to the building (home or work). It's forcible felony statutes kind of address the issue, but still require an imminent threat of death or serious injury. So this case, without an in depth legal analysis on my part, seems to fall short of a clear-cut defense of self or home defense , not to mention all the thumbs down factors we mention in Chapter 7 such as armed defender/unarmed "victim," young victim, possible race issues. Hence, this gives prosecutors license to attempt to fry the shooter like a chicken gizzard on a hot, sticky Sunday night in the Deep South! But on the other hand again, it's time for society to send a message to these budding criminals and their parents that there are places you just shouldn't go or you could be killed. Hence Pancho's commentary under the home-defense section of our Chapter encouraging adoption of the Mother of All Self-Defense Laws:

Pancho’s Wisdom: If Willie Nelson were asked to sing a logical response to the Harvard argument, he would probably pen the words, “Mamas don’t let you babies grow up to “wander” into other people’s homes in Bama or Florida.” There are countless places that exist in our modern world that could prove fatal for children. Parents and teens in New York understand that if the kids play hide-n-seek in an active subway tunnel, they could be crushed. San Diego families don’t let their kids play laser tag on Interstate 5 at 3am. Moms and dads all over this land teach their kids not to trespass into power sub-stations surrounded by high chain-link fences topped with barbed wire, surrounded by signs warning “Danger: High Voltage.” Con- cerned career-criminal parents nurturing, burgeoning burglars-in-embryo need only remind their offspring to add someone-else’s home [and arguably the curtilege) to the list of places where they know that uninvited intrusion could lead to sudden death. What’s so hard about that?

It's not hard, but legislators don't apparently have the backbone to make the home and curtilage a "certain-death zone" if you are an uninvited intruder.

After four days of deliberation, the jury in the trial of Michael Dunn, a Florida man who shot a teenager to death in a parking lot during a dispute over loud music, said it could not agree on whether Mr. Dunn had acted in self-defense or was guilty of murder.The jurors did find Mr. Dunn guilty of three counts of attempted murder for getting out of his car, and firing several times at the Durango sport utility vehicle in which Jordan Davis, 17, was killed but three other teenagers survived. Mr. Dunn continued to fire at the car even as it pulled away. For that crime, Mr. Dunn he could be sentenced to 20 to 60 years in prison.The judge declared a mistrial on the count of first-degree murder. The jury also failed to reach agreement on lesser charges that are automatically included in jury instructions.Those were second- and third-degree murder and manslaughter. Prosecutors are free to move ahead with a new trial on the murder charge, if they wish.READ MORE »http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/16/us/florida-killing-over-loud-music.html?emc=edit_na_20140215

After four days of deliberation, the jury in the trial of Michael Dunn, a Florida man who shot a teenager to death in a parking lot during a dispute over loud music, said it could not agree on whether Mr. Dunn had acted in self-defense or was guilty of murder.The jurors did find Mr. Dunn guilty of three counts of attempted murder for getting out of his car, and firing several times at the Durango sport utility vehicle in which Jordan Davis, 17, was killed but three other teenagers survived. Mr. Dunn continued to fire at the car even as it pulled away. For that crime, Mr. Dunn he could be sentenced to 20 to 60 years in prison.The judge declared a mistrial on the count of first-degree murder. The jury also failed to reach agreement on lesser charges that are automatically included in jury instructions.Those were second- and third-degree murder and manslaughter. Prosecutors are free to move ahead with a new trial on the murder charge, if they wish.READ MORE »http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/16/us/florida-killing-over-loud-music.html?emc=edit_na_20140215

This from Mitch Vilos, the author the of SD Law of the 50 States Book that we sell:

This is what happens when there are too many thumbs-down factors. The defendant claimed he saw a shotgun. After the shooting the SUV he shot into left the scene for 3 minutes and came back, just long enough to dispose of a weapon. Had he really believed he saw a shotgun, he should have immediately reported the assault and asked police to find and search the SUV. Instead, he left the scene, went to a hotel with his fiancé and had pizza for dinner. Thumbs down as I recall: Failure to avoid the conflict, defendant arguably the initial aggressor because no shotgun found, failure to de-escalate the conflict, victims had no weapon as far as we know, defendant drinking or drunk, defendant left scene without reporting the alleged attack upon him, defendant white, victims black, multiple shots fired apparently even as car was fleeing (see photos with dowels stuck in bullet holes), conflicting statements made by defendant outside presence of attorney (suggesting false information to police at least at some point, destroying defendant's credibility), victims are "youths." and last but not least (See Chapter 7) being an A__hole and allowing another A__hole rattle his chain. That's a LOT of thumbs down factors which make it difficult, if not impossible, for any defense attorney to overcome.http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/16/justice/florida-loud-music-trial/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

California wait period doesn't apply to gun ownersSACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A federal judge has overturned part of a California law requiring a 10-day waiting period for gun buyers, ruling that it does not apply to those who already own firearms.

U.S. District Judge Anthony Ishii of Fresno ruled that "10-day waiting periods impermissibly violate the Second Amendment" for gun-buyers who already passed background checks or are authorized to carry concealed weapons.

Californians buying their first firearm will still be subject to background checks and the 10-day waiting period under the ruling, dated Friday.

A spokesman for the state attorney general, Nick Pacilio, said Monday that officials are reviewing the ruling as they decide whether to appeal.

Two gun owners and two gun-owner rights groups, The Calguns Foundation and the Second Amendment Foundation, sued over the state waiting period in 2011.